For some, blogging is a useful pastime or a commercial venture. For others, it is the thin thread by which one hangs onto sanity. For this latter group, be proud: there are many like you in the blogosphere, just one keystroke away from madness. To keep the demons at bay, you must blog often and honestly. And you must have readers who will respond – this connection to others may be your only human contact. So put down that knife and blog your way to mental equilibrium. It’s easy; I’ll show you how to start.
- Design your website: Use WordPress website hosting to create your website. WordPress is the leading blog software, is easy to use and quickly adaptable. You download a theme (many of them are free) and apply it to a base WordPress installation. The result will be a website that reflects the look and feel of your chosen theme. Try something peaceful, a look that doesn’t over-stimulate the viewer. Remember, a quiet mind is a happy mind.
- Write your blog: Lord knows you don’t sleep, so three am is an excellent time to pound out your blog. Even the smallest problems look huge at this time of night, making for really engrossing reading and therapeutic writing. You want to write well – remember, you’re crazy, not stupid – so consider hiring a professional writer to edit your material. Editors don’t charge much and they can help trim back any excesses that you may in the future regret writing.
- Market your blog: You need readers the way a spider needs a web. To pull In readers, you must publicize your website. I assume you are not rich or else you’d be at a spa right now. So you want to market your blog cost-efficiently. Do not buy paid listings from Google or the other search engines. It’s expensive and doesn’t confer lasting value. Instead, purchase paid links from high-authority sites that cover related subject matter. These paid links will not only drive traffic directly to your website, it will also improve your search performance. Ultimately, you’d like to be on Page One of the search engine results pages, and paid links can get you there. Paid links are a feature of search engine optimization, in which you achieve high-ranked page results organically (not paying for their placement).
Blogging and maybe a little Prozac will help you get through those long lonely nights and allow you face the day. So start blogging tonight – it’s the rational thing to do.